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17151. A Military for the 21st Century: Lessons from the Recent Past

Author:
Anthony C. Zinni
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, more than any other event, marked the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember crossing through a vacant Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. No one on either side knew quite what we could or could not do, since it all happened so fast. The confusion and stark contrast between East and West Berlin made it hard to believe that we had once feared this collapsed Warsaw Pact or seen it as a serious global competitor. The West always contended that communism was a fundamentally flawed system that would eventually fail. Despite that belief, we were caught by surprise by the sudden and total end of the Soviet empire and the system that governed half the world. At the time, our President proudly drew what appeared to be the logical conclusion from these events: that there was to be a new world order. Others talked of reaping a peace dividend, since defense spending surely could be reduced.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Berlin

17152. Normalizing U.S.-Russian Relations

Author:
Eugene B. Rumer and Richard D. Sokolsky
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Ten years after the end of the Cold War, mutual hopes that a comprehensive partnership would replace containment as the major organizing theme in U.S.-Russian relations have not been realized. The record of the 1990s has left both Russia and the United States unsatisfied. Russia looks back at the decade with bitterness and a feeling of being marginalized and slighted by the world's sole remaining superpower. It is also disappointed by its experience with Western-style reforms and mistrustful of American intentions. The United States is equally disappointed with Russia's lack of focus, inability to engage effectively abroad, and failure to implement major reforms at home. A comprehensive partnership is out of the question. Renewed competition or active containment are also not credible as organizing principles. Russia's economic, military and political/ideological weakness makes it an unlikely target of either U.S. competition or containment. Not only is Russia no longer a superpower, but its status as a regional power is in doubt.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

17153. Revising the Two-Major Theater War Standard

Author:
Hans Binnendijk and Richard L. Kugler
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
One of the toughest challenges facing the Department of Defense (DOD) is translating strategic policy into concrete guidelines for preparing U.S. military forces. A defense planning standard is a set of judgments and directives for performing this key function. Normally this standard has three associated roles: to determine the size of forces and their main missions; to establish program and budgetary priorities; and to inform the Congress and the public of the rationale behind the defense strategy and force posture. For example, the Kennedy administration standard was a two and one-half war strategy, and the Nixon administration had a one and one-half war strategy. To guide its planning, the Carter administration used the standard of multitheater war with the Soviet Union in Europe and the Persian Gulf. The Reagan administration applied an Illustrative Planning Scenario that contemplated global war with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

17154. Renovating U.S. Strategic Arms Control Policy

Author:
Richard D. Sokolsky
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
There has been a tectonic shift in the strategic landscape since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) negotiations concluded in the early 1990s. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are defunct. America and Russia are no longer enemies and the nuclear arms race between the two countries is, for all intents and purposes, over. The threat of a surprise nuclear attack has all but vanished along with any plausible scenario between the two countries that could escalate to a nuclear war. The strategic warning time for reconstitution of a credible conventional military threat to Europe can now be measured in years. The likelihood that Russia could marshal the economic resources for clandestine production of new nuclear weapon systems on a militarily significant scale is extremely remote. The most serious security threats emanating from Russia today—poorly safeguarded nuclear warheads and materials and the potential proliferation of such material and expertise to states of concern—reflect profound weakness. Simply put, the proliferation risks attendant to a Russia in the throes of a long-term structural crisis are a far more serious security threat than SS–18 heavy missiles destroying U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in a preemptive first strike.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

17155. The U.S. Strategic Posture Review: Issues for the New Administration

Author:
M. Elaine Bunn and Richard D. Sokolsky
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Before the next administration decides on a strategic force posture, national missile defense (NMD) architecture, and arms control objectives for both offensive and defensive forces, it needs to grapple with questions of strategy and doctrine. Any consideration of alternative defense strategies and their implications for nuclear forces and missile defenses should start with a basic set of questions: For what purposes will we need nuclear weapons and missile defenses in the future and under what conditions would these missions be carried out? What countries will pose strategic threats to vital U.S. national interests over the next 10–20 years? What hostile actions are we trying to deter, and what are the proper character, size, and mix of nuclear weapons and defenses in deterring these threats?
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

17156. The Strategic Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Author:
Judith S. Yaphe and Kori N. Schake
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Scholars and other spcialists on Iran have argued about that country's political intentions and strategic amibitions since the overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. In the 1980s Iran's efforts to export its revolution and support international terrorism raised the question of whether a moderate Islamic republic that was able to deal with the West could ever exist. The death of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 and the succession of Ali Hashimi-Rafsanjani as president raised new issues for the 1990s. As the European and American oil and investment communities considered the race to open Iran commercially, scholars and diplomats debated Iranian efforts to recover from nearly a decade of war and revolution. They compared the merits of the European approach of initiating critical dialogue with the U.S. policy of containing and isolating Iran. Neither approach seemed to have much impact, both conceded, and Iranians continued to sort out their domestic political agenda and to decide how best to protect their strategic and national interests. The U.S. Government, for example, tried to estimate how much time and money Iran would need to modernize its military and to acquire new weapons systems despite projected low oil prices and the country's need to rebuild its damaged and neglected civilian and industrial infrastructure.1 The assumption underlying the U.S. projections was that Iran would be pursuing weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear technology and longrange missile systems.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Iran, and Middle East

17157. Conflict, Conflict Resolution and the Children of Northern Ireland: Towards Understanding the Impact on Children and Families

Author:
Erin L. Lovell and E. Mark Cummings
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:
This review employs a multidisciplinary approach to consider the effects of conflict and conflict processes on children in the case of Northern Ireland. Conflict process is likely to effect children at multiple and different levels of societal functioning, with each level capturing a unique element of the effects of conflict processes on children. Thus, understanding each part of the process is likely to contribute towards a more complete understanding than is possible by focusing only on any one level of analysis. Various levels of analysis (e.g., economic, political, institutional, educational) of the effects of communal conflict on adults and children in Northern Ireland have been considered elsewhere (INCORE, 1995). The specific gap addressed in this paper is to further the conceptualization of the psychological, sociological, and familial processes in children that may be affected by communal conflict in Northern Ireland. A related goal is to place these conceptualizations in terms of a broader framework for understanding the complexity of the processes underlying the impact of the conflict.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Peace Studies, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe and North Ireland

17158. Youth as Social and Political Agents: Issues in Post-Settlement Peace Building

Author:
Siobhán McEvoy-Levy
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:
There is a growing body of literature dealing with the roles of children and young people in armed conflict and the effects of such conflict on their development (Brett McCallin, 1996; Cohn Goodwin-Gill, 1994; Klare, 1999; Machel, 1996; Wessells, 1998). This literature based on extensive field case work has provided important evidence of intensive child and youth involvement in warfare, the reasons for that involvement, the processes of induction into armed groups, the activities of children in these groups - as fighters, cooks, spies, couriers, and in providing sexual services - and their immediate - term rehabilitation needs once a war has been ended. Many of these studies make recommendations about demobilization, reintegration and prevention with an emphasis on economic, social, and psychological measures and the effective implementation of relevant international law. Although much has been discovered and is actively utilized in the domain of advocacy, most studies recognize that much more needs to be done to develop research and good practice particularly in the area of healing war - torn societies across a range of social, psychological, economic and security interests and needs and using indigenous beliefs and rituals as peace building resources (Wessells 2000).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Arabia

17159. The Guatemalan Peace Process: The Accords and Their Accomplishments

Author:
Luis Pásara
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:
Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, suffered an internal armed conflict for 36 years. A long and difficult peace negotiation process ended in 1996 with the signing of the most comprehensive and ambitious peace accords in the history of peace agreements. Five years later, the accomplishments of the accords are limited. This article examines the social context in which the accords were negotiated and implemented. It also explores some of its accomplishments and shortcomings, and suggests the first lessons learned.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Law, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

17160. Department of the Navy: Two-Level Performance Management Program

Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The National Academy of Public Administration
Abstract:
To gauge the effectiveness of its Two - Level Program, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Civilian Personnel/Equal Employment Opportunity) of the Department of the Navy (DON) engaged the services of the National Academy of Public Administration's (NAPA) Center for Human Resources Management (CHRM). The NAPA review focused on the extent to which implementation of the DON Two - Level Program fosters adherence to critical program elements including system requirements, awards and recognition, career development and advancement, a more productive environment, and improved communication and feedback. Data were analyzed to determine compliance with program requirements, identify successful approaches, document significant program outcomes, and examine best practices.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, Industrial Policy, and International Organization